


Just As Scared

by LuMieke



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, Fluff and Angst, Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 00:10:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8348320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuMieke/pseuds/LuMieke
Summary: On Halloween cases were simple. Groups of teenagers visit haunted places to get a rush. Little did they know their harmless trip often became real danger and Sam and Dean had to clean up behind them. This Halloween, though, Dean wants Cas to come with him but, as always, things don't go as well as expected and they lose each other. They have to cope with themselves and it slowly starts to drive them crazy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the Destiel Halloween Mini Bang.  
> The brilliant art was made by Kuwlshadow and I really love it ^^  
> A big thank you to my betas Marlen and Kordelia! You are the best.
> 
> I hope you'll like it :)

Lights flickered as they walked down the road towards the old, dark house. Their conversations had faded the moment they had spotted it, still none of them admitted their disapproval of this idea and the fear they felt. Tom still encouraged them with stupid banters and “how there wouldn't be anything anyway” although not as confident as before. It was the first relatively cold night in weeks; dark, heavy clouds in the sky and the moon barely visible between them – altogether the perfect night for Halloween.

Kaitlyn hated the idea of this: breaking into this house, looking through the stuff of the previous owner – a young man, married, one child. Killed himself, after killing them. There were lots of rumors about him. The majority said he had just gone mad because his wife cheated on him while a few crazy people believed he was possessed. Either way that man did murder his family and this house was cursed, though maybe just metaphorically.

So now all five of them – Tom, Benny, Elaine, Josh and herself, Kaitlyn – were stood on the porch of that empty house, hesitant to enter it. Benny was the one to open the door, ducking under the yellow “Do not cross” police tape while the others followed him. The floor they stepped on made a grating sound.

“They didn't even lock the door,” Tom said, “Can't be that bad after all.”

“I wonder if the electricity is still working.” Elaine murmured under her breath as she walked to the nearest light switch and pressed it. The light went on and illuminated the small corridor. There were framed pictures on the white wall, a few pair of children's shoes on the floor, magnets attached to the heating. It seemed like an ordinary family home except the dust and the spider webs made it look like it was set on pause mode. Like the family was on vacation and would come home in a week or two. But they weren't.

Suddenly this whole situation felt more immature and ridiculous to Kaitlyn than ever before. What the hell did they want to find in here? Human remains? As if the police wouldn't have taken care of it. The only thing she could think of was that it felt so uncomfortably wrong.

Tom, Benny and Elaine, now having restored their courage went directly on into the kitchen. After exchanging a quick look, Josh and herself followed hesitantly. For some reason she mentally prepared herself for what they might find in there but after entering it she decided the kitchen looked just as fine as the corridor. The real surprise waited for them in the living room. It started out with only a bend corner of a carpet; Benny almost tripped over it and then spotted that wall and all that blood.

They all knew they had been killed in this house but they never really imagined what it would look like. Dry blood looked like dried paint. Somehow.

Of course there were still police signs and securing of evidence devices which made this entire place look even more creepy and left behind.

As the others turned to look their hearts skipped a beat. They didn't speak, didn't even dare to breathe properly. Kaitlyn's blood turned to ice.

After seconds, even minutes Tom finally spoke again.

“It's just a bit of blood, guys,” Tom said, turning around, “Come on. I want to go upstairs.”

“A bit of blood?” Elaine asked hysterically, “Tom, this isn't just a bit of fucking blood.”

Tom just grinned while he set his foot on the first step of the stairs. Exactly in the moment his foot touched the wooden ground, the lights went out.

“Must be because the electricity wasn't used in months.” Benny said, “But hey, perfect thing for today!”

Tom turned to Josh. “Already peeing your pants, Joshie? Feel free to leave whenever you want.”

Benny laughed. “I'm kind of surprised he's still here.”

“Oh, shut up, Benjamin.” Kaitlyn muttered. She was cold and wanted nothing more than to go home but she promised Josh to stay with him. In the dark she reached for his hand and he reassuringly squeezed it. Together they made their way up the stairs. Elaine suddenly remembered the bag on her shoulder and she pulled out a flashlight, which she immediately passed to Tom. He took it and made his way to the room, nearest to them. The little boy's room was painted blue, the tiny bed standing in there was half the size of Kaitlyn's but wasn't made and she thought of her little brother.

Suddenly a loud noise coming from downstairs made them all jump.

“What the hell was that?” Josh exclaimed. They stood so close to another that Kaitlyn could feel his heart hammering inside his chest.

“Probably the wind.” Benny responded, sounding absolutely not convinced by what he was saying. “Lets go investigate.”

The stairs sounded louder than before as Tom stepped on them, Benny following him. Elaine wanted to follow, too, but after seeing Josh and Kaitlyn had no intention to move she decided to stay, as well. They could hear every single of Tom and Benny's steps and their soft whispering. Elaine tried to calm herself by whisper-singing Lady Gaga's Pokerface, which made Kaitlyn even more nervous. Nothing will happen, she told herself. Nothing will happen, nothing will happen, nothing will happen.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a scream – Benny's scream - from downstairs.

“Are you alright?” Josh yelled but he didn't get an answer. Everything was silent. And then there was a tapping.

_Tap._

Kaitlyn's body felt completely numb.

_Tap._

It was louder now.

_Tap._

Josh grabbed Kaitlyn's arms and pulled her behind him.

Tap.

Elaine looked to them, eyes big and fear written on her entire face.

_Tap._

It sounded as if it was only a few feet away.

_Tap,_

Silence,

and slam.

Everything went black.

 

 

 

Sam woke up with his head spinning. Maybe he shouldn’t have drunk so much yesterday. He wondered if Dean was miserable, too, but he didn’t believe in it. Dean was used to a lot of alcohol.  
He got up too quickly, having to hold onto the nearest wall for support. God, he was wrecked. Why did he even agree to this? He somehow managed it to the kitchen and took an aspirin, hoping his stomach would keep it inside. He better not ate any breakfast. He then lay down in his bed again with a wet, cold cloth on his head and concentrated on sleeping. Soon he did.  
  
After Dean woke up he went to get some breakfast in the kitchen. Well, it wasn't really breakfast. More like an early dinner at 5pm but he really had deserved that bit of sleep. In the sink were some bloody knifes from the last night’s hunt. He carefully put them aside, cursing Sam in his head. How often had he told him to wash them up right when he put them there.  
While getting some eggs out of the fridge he remembered the last night. They’ve been incredibly exhausted after the particularly hard hunt but still decided to go out and have a beer. They’ve been so worked up and they didn’t have a lot of time together. As hunters, they did, but not as brothers. And maybe, just maybe, the drank a little bit too much. Dean didn’t mind. In his experience it didn’t exactly affect the quality of life or better, the next day but he knew for sure Sam wouldn’t be so well today. So that’s why he wasn’t up yet. And why the knives lay in the sink. Poor little Sammy is hungover. Sometimes he just needed the feeling like he really was the big brother. Well, he was but Sam was so much more responsible and mature than him. And nerdy and boring, of course.  
He put a big piece of butter into the frying pan and cracked one egg open. Apparently they were out of bacon. Cas wanted to hunt with them he once said. He remembered what it was like the last time they took him with them, but how was he supposed to learn if he never tried, right?  
He cracked open two other eggs and put a piece of toast in the toaster.  
Today was Halloween with a lot of very simple ghost hunts because teenagers were frankly speaking stupid. So maybe Cas could come with them. If he wanted to.  
Dean set a plate on the counter and poured the first egg on it before it started burning. It smelled like heaven. Well...  
“Hey Cas, can you come here for a sec?” he said, taking the toast and the plate, turned around and sat at the table.  
Dean heard a door open and close and soon he spotted Cas entering the kitchen, too.  
“Hello, Dean.” He said, his blue eyes big and asking.  
“Good to see ya, Cas.”  
“You too, Dean.”  
“So, uh... Want to go on a hunt with us today? It’s Halloween and there are a lot of pretty simple cases. I just thought you’d like to.” Dean shrugged his shoulders. “I mean you obviously don’t have to but-“  
“Yes.” Cas said, “Yeah, I... I’d really like that, Dean.”  
Dean looked more surprised than anything else. He really didn’t expect the angel to want to come with them after their last hunt together. But he was very happy about it.  
“Good!” Dean exclaimed, “Yeah, great. So, I’m gonna start looking for a case. You want to stay here?”  
“Can I help you with it?” Cas asked and got up.  
“Yes, sure.” Dean answered muffled, having just taken a huge bite of his toast.  
“Dean?”  
“Mmh?” he answered and swallowed.  
“Something smells burned.”  
“Oh, damn it.” Dean jumped up and turned to the now completely burned eggs. He’d totally forgotten about them.  
There was no point in making some new ones, he wasn’t really hungry anymore anyway. So he just opened the trash can and emptied the frying pan over it. He felt Cas’ eyes in his back. As he turned around he caught him staring at him.  
“What?” Dean asked while shaking his head.

“Where's Sam?” Cas asked instead of answering.  
“Got a hangover I guess. I'd rather not wake him. Seems like we need to go alone then.”

Dean indicated for Cas to follow him out of the kitchen and sat down at the massive wooden table in the hall.

“Sam recently taught me how to research correctly.” Dean said as he opened the laptop ans pressed the 'on' button. “Turns out I haven't researched properly my entire life.” There was a bitter undertone in his voice and Cas wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't known Dean this well.

“It's always teenagers, you know?” He tipped something on the keyboard and carefully turned the screen in Cas' direction.

After half an hour of looking through teenagers posts, and comparing their plans for Halloween to the deaths in town, they finally found what they were looking for. “Apparently this guy, Benny Foster, wants to visit the house a family was murdered in. I'm not one hundred percent sure but I could bet my baby on it; something is in this house.” Dean said, turning to Cas. “It's about 200 miles away. We should get going now.”

“Dean, do you think we will make it there in time? You know I can't teleport us there.”

“Yeah, it's gonna be alright. We'll need three hours, maybe a bit more. Just hurry.” he replied.

 

They left a little note for Sam after Dean went to look whether he was still sleeping. He was. It wasn't the first time Dean went for a hunt without Sam but it was the first time he and Cas would be on a hunt alone. For some very odd reason this made him very happy and he couldn't say why that was.

Four hours later Dean and Cas were still in the car. The drive there took way longer than Dean had anticipated. They still needed to drive over an hour and currently it was 11pm. He could only hope they weren't too late. Cas didn't say that much in that four hours. Well, he never did but there was something else about him; something that made him act even more inhuman than usual. Every now and then he asked Dean about the song that was playing or how long they would still sit here but nothing of importance, nothing that he could have answered with more than one or two sentences. While he was driving there was more than one moment he felt Cas stare at him. He pretended not to notice and just continued to mouth the lyrics of the songs that were playing at the moment. How odd.

Half an hour later they arrived and Dean parked next to the old house. It seemed to be so calm and peaceful and for a little moment – barely a second – Dean doubted this was really the right house. Perhaps they found the wrong information on the internet; every idiot could write lies there. It was only one second, but it was there.

They got out of the car and took some weapons out of the trunk before they ran towards the house. Dean pushed the police tape aside and laid his right hand onto the doorknob and he could swear he felt Cas' fingers brush along his back. He probably just imagined it but it made him feel secure, somehow safe considering they were now probably facing a vindictive ghost. He opened the door just wide enough for both of them to slip in. The floor under their feet made a creaking noise and there was a smell in the air, Dean recognized immediately.

“Smell that, Cas? It's sulfur. It's a demon.” Dean turned around and made his way through the kitchen, into the living room.

“Son of a bitch.” he whispered as he spotted it. Two bodies, one nailed against the wall with a knife in his chest, the other one on the floor. They didn't look older than 16.

“We came too late.” Cas sounded numb, completely aghast.

“Yes, I know.” Dean replied, “But we need to kill that thing before it can kill more people. That's all we can do now.”

Cas only nodded, and left the living room. Dean could just assume he didn't want to see the the bodies and he could understand him. He didn't want to see them either.

And suddenly there was a loud thud. And a muffled scream. Upstairs.

Without hesitation Dean grabbed his gun and rushed upstairs, taking two steps at a time. In his mind he imagined the worst but as he took the last step he stood in a completely empty hallway. Nothing made it seem like here was anybody. He noticed Cas right behind him, holding a gun, too. What did Cas need a gun for?

Dean slowly moved forward, exploring the other rooms. Bedroom, bathroom, children's room. Nothing.

“Dean... Where are they? What happened here?” Cas took a few steps forward and opened the drawer of a wardrobe.

Dean swung his bag off his shoulder and took the EMF and a flashlight out of it.

“I don't know,” he said, “Here take this.” The flashlight flew across the room and Cas caught it.

“Dean, look.” he said, pointing at the drawer he just opened.

“What is that?” he asked after he spotted the book. “What, Mania and Mantus? Sounds like a children's book to me.”

“No, Dean. Mania and Manius are in Roman and Etruscan mythology the ruler of the underworld. Mania is basically the mother of everything evil.”

“So... this is some kind of Tulpa? People believe in it and so it exists?”

“I don't know. It is possible. But it could be something else. This book could be here by accident.”

“Yeah, sure. What happy, normal family has a book about the damn goddess of death in their drawers?”

“I don't know. This family?”

“It was a-” Dean began, but soon stopped because it was not worth explaining. “Never mind, Cas. Now take the book we're going downstairs. I hope the book will give something away.” The last part was more mumbled than actually spoken. There were two possibilities where they could be: They were still in the house – but they had looked everywhere and they saw nothing – or they were in the Veil. But it wasn't a demon, was it? It could be, he smelled sulfur earlier, but actually, he didn't know. It could even be a ghost. Their only proper lead was the book and Dean wasn't even sure if it was one. And he had thought this was going to be an easy case...

By the time they were back in the kitchen they laid the book onto the counter and opened it. It wasn't dusty like you would imagine a book of this age. Actually it looked surprisingly flawless. Not like a book they just recently bought, without any stains or bend pages, but kept in a good condition over what seemed like a hell of a lot of time.

The first thing they noticed was the photograph falling out of the first pages. It was just a family portrait used as a bookmark, but it made all this feel more personal. Dean skipped the pages that contained the history of mania; Cas would tell him if there was something important he should know.

“Oh.” Cas said suddenly, like a little kid.

“What is it?” Dean didn't look up from the book.

“I just realized, I left my gun upstairs.” Cas replied, “I'm going to get it quickly.”

“What d'you even need it for? Gosh!”

He listened as Cas' steps became more and more silent until he barely heard the frequent 'tap' of his feet against the wood.

“What creature are you?” Dean mumbled to himself as he flipped through the pages back to the beginning of the book. It said Mania was to be summoned to make the dead come back to life. What an irony; the goddess of the dead bringing people back to life? And people were so desperate and believed it.

On the next pages there was the Latin spells for summoning her and also one for Mantus. Dean knew what had happened here a year ago; he had read about it in the FBI files before they got here. Now it started to sew together like a puzzle. The man didn't kill his family – Mania did. He had tried to get his sister back and it ended in a disaster. Though that cleared up some things he still didn't know how to get the three kids back and... where the hell was Cas?

“Cas?” he shouted. Nothing.  
“Son of a bitch.”  
He took his gun and put another one into his leather jacket, just to be safe. Carefully he climbed the stairs once again, looking around him and listening to every single noise. Except there was none. None at all but his heavy footsteps. It was so silent that it sounded wrong, completely unnatural. On the chest of drawers he saw Cas’ gun. He didn’t even make it to this point, so what happened here?  
“Cas?” he yelled again, “Castiel?”  
Like before he got no reply. Instead he was still surrounded by this uncomfortable silence. His insides twisted uncomfortably. Slowly he started to feel insecure, helpless somehow and very lost. The same way he had felt the time his dad had gone on a hunt and they didn’t hear from him for weeks. He didn’t know if he would ever see him again; wasn’t allowed to call. He was twelve back then and Sam was eight. But at least then it was not his fault. Also his dad had always come back.  
He took a deep breath, ignoring his fast beating heart. The last thing he should do now was lose his mind. He needed to keep it cool.  
Should he call Sam? No, he wouldn’t be here in time. Also Sam needed his sleep and maybe there also was a little pride in Dean that told him he didn’t need help; he was the big brother after all.  
  
All of a sudden he knew exactly what to do. It was so obvious, he wanted to slap himself for not knowing. He had to summon Mania and kill her; maybe this way Cas would come back to him. And the children too, of course. But how does someone kill a creature they weren’t sure what it was? He smelled sulfur earlier, but did he really? The doubt he felt built up like a wall he could not look over. It could be a ghost, but that would mean she was a real person once, which Dean knew, she wasn't – couldn't be. So, was it a Tulpa? He couldn’t kill all the people that believed in her – if there were any; maybe there was a big tribe in Italy or something; he couldn’t convince them to stop believing in her anymore. _If_ it was a Tulpa. Or it was something completely different from anything. Dean wished he had the books from the bunker with him, but he hadn’t, so he had to work without them and just _try_.  
Before he went down again he took Cas’ gun with him.

  
His guns were loaded with salt and iron, there was salt everywhere for Dean to reach. He put two knives in his belt and one in his shoe. He was ready. More or less.  
Cas is fine, he told himself, he is perfectly fine and waiting to come back. Cas is fine.  
He didn’t think about what could go wrong when he opened the book and said the spell. In fact he just thought about nothing. Nothing and the color of Cas’ trenchcoat maybe. After the last word he prepared himself, taking one gun out and concentrating. Behind him a vase scattered. He jumped a little at the sudden noise, but immediately turned around. His eyes adjusting to the dark, he saw her. She didn’t look angry or _wild_ ; she looked peaceful and perfect as if she was wearing a mask. Her face was expressionless, as if she was sleeping. She was beautiful. Black curls and a black dress that seemed like it was made out of feathers. Maybe it was. Dean felt almost sad he had to kill her. Perhaps other people were tricked by her beauty, but not Dean. He saw Cas’ face in his mind and knew what he needed to do. He was never more certain.  
She watched him as he took his gun – the one with the salt – and shot. Nothing happened. He didn’t miss her – the bullet went through her body and the way she got pushed back looked human – but it didn’t affect her body. It did have an effect though because her face suddenly warped. It looked horrible and so wrong. But that wasn’t the only thing that changed; she also came directly in his direction. He barely had time to dodge away when she flew towards him. Dean took the other gun out of his jacket, but didn’t have enough time to even point it at her. He sprinted upstairs and turned around, only to see her coming directly towards him once again. This time he wasn’t as lucky; she got him, scratching her fingernails into his face. He crawled away until he felt the door at his back. Now she started punching him. Something warm dripped out of his mouth and the pain got worse with every punch. He could feel every single bone. Breathing got harder and harder while he felt like she was sucking the power out of him. When he was right about to pass out, he realized he still didn’t hear anything than himself. Maybe he imagined it due to the lack of oxygen but it had an effect on him; he didn’t know how that made Cas face appear in his head but it all of a sudden it was there. And he punched back and pulled out the knife in his shoe and stabbed her into her shoulder, because that’s the best part he got. She cried out – the first sound she made. It was a horrible. Like fingernails on a chalkboard or even worse. Dean used the hesitation to stab her again. And again. She twisted her eyes and fell on he back. She looked so human. Deans ears felt numb and they throbbed after her howl. The goddess made one last very silent noise and then disappeared, leaving only ash.  
Taking deep breaths to calm his fast beating heart, Dean brushed some blood off of his face. A wave of euphoria spread through his body. He made it. He made it. Cas had to be here somewhere. He made it.  
He got up. His legs hurt but he didn’t care. Cas had to be here.  
“Cas?” he yelled once again. “Cas?”  
But there was no reply. Frantically he searched through the rooms, but he was still alone.  
“Oh, no. No. No. This can’t be true. No!” Frustrated he leaned onto the wall and closed his eyes.  
“Son of a bitch.” He mumbled.  
His eyes remained closed for a few seconds until he grasped everything. There was no one; no kids and no Cas. Downstairs was the same.

 

Dean didn’t know what to do with the dead bodies; he couldn’t do anything without automatically becoming a suspect and he felt bad for it.  
For Dean, not-knowing whether someone was alive or not was worse than actually knowing they weren’t. He had told Cas this would be an easy case; he thought they would solve it in half an hour and then head home and get some pizza and watch horror movies. He thought this would be easy. But now… Dean felt like crying. He didn’t - because he was Dean - but he wanted to. He called Sam but he didn’t pick up, so Dean spoke on his mailbox.  
There was no point in staying here. Part of him still believed Cas could appear any second but another knew it wasn’t going to happen.

He bought a bottle of gin, found the nearest motel and took a room.

  
And that’s where he sat now, drunk, looking at his soot-black hands and fiddling with Cas’ gun. God, he was such an idiot. And Sam was a total dick. And Cas was gone or dead or alive or- whatever and it was Deans fault. When Mania killed, she left the bodies, didn’t she? So Cas wasn’t dead then? Dean wanted to stop thinking so badly. He took another big swig out of the bottle. It burned. He wanted to feel nothing, think about nothing, but it wasn’t as easy as people assumed. Every time he even remotely managed to think about something else his mind wandered back to Cas and the way he appeared this morning in the kitchen of the bunker and the way his face had lit up when Dean had asked him to come with him. How important he was to him – he had never realized.  
Maybe he decided to do it because he was drunk or because he was desperate or both – probably both – he prayed to him.  
“Castiel, if you can hear me”, he started, “well, you probably can’t but I wanted you to know that I am so sorry. I’m sorry, Cas.” His vision started to blur and his throat hurt but he just continued, “I shouldn't have made you come here with me.” One tear met the cold, dirty motel floor. “I killed that bitch, if you want to know that. She's dead.” his voice faded.

“ _Dean.”_

There were goose-pimples all over his skin. Was he dreaming? Hallucinating? The bottle he held was hardly empty yet. He must've imagined it. Cas wasn't here.

“ _Dean”_

Did he imagine it a second time? It was worth a try.

“Cas? Can you hear me?”

“ _Yes, Dean. We're trapped here.”_ His voice was barely audible.

“Where? Cas, where?” Deans heart beat so fast, he thought it would come out of his chest soon.

“ _I don't know. It looks like the house we were in.”_

“But... You weren't there. No one was there. I looked everywhere.”

“ _I believe it's some sort of other dimension.”_

“Other dim- How are you coming back to this dimension?”

“ _What did you do?”_ Dean realized Cas' voice was in his head.

“What do you mean?”

“ _To kill her. What did you do?”_

“Oh, iron knife through the heart. Why?” Dean set the bottle aside.

“ _Maybe killing her in this world means I will get back.”_

“Okay.”

“ _Dean?”_

“Yes?”

“ _Don't apologize for this. See you then.”_

Dean couldn't help but smile. Cas was alive. Alive and doing good. He was fine. He was so relieved. Relieved and grateful and happy. Alive and fine. Cas.

After splashing some cold water into his face he drove back to the house. He was very drunk and probably shouldn't drive but he didn't care right now. All that mattered was Cas.

Entering the house still felt terrible. He didn't know where to wait so he sat on the stairs, the middle of it all happening, and waited. Cas would manage killing her, he had help. And killing her will bring him back, he told himself. It will work. It had to.

Time passed but nothing happened. Dean hated waiting. This aversion was his fathers fault, he concluded. This entire situation was his fathers fault, although... no. If then it was his fault; his own stupid mistake. He felt a sudden urge to hurt himself, anger heating his entire body.

More time passed and he grew more and more impatient. And then he heard a sound behind him. He swung around and immediately spotted the trenchcoat. Oh, this beautiful, marvelous trenchcoat, how he'd missed it.

The first thing he did was hugging Cas. He pressed him as near as possible to himself, not caring about being able to breathe or not. He felt Cas' hands digging into the leather of his jacket, as well and he was so happy.

They didn't need to explain to the teens what happened to their friends; they already knew. Of course. Cas didn't want to let Dean drive anymore, so he drove the kids home. They promised to take care of the police and the bodies. They didn't thank Dean or Cas but Dean didn't mind; they've been through enough. Although it was their own fault, Dean felt sorry for them. 

As they stood in front of the motel door, Dean fiddled a bit too long with the keys, so Cas took them out of Deans shaking hands and opened the door. Maybe he had drunk a bit too much. Inside they put some of their stuff, which they hadn't left in the trunk of the car onto one of the beds. Dean had taken a double room. After he checked himself in the mirror, he noticed the black stains in his face. They must've been from his hands. He had run his hands along his face quite often that day. He washed them off quickly and also changed into some clean clothes. As he opened the door of the bathroom, he saw Cas sitting on the couch, paralyzed by some horror movie.

“Are you okay?” Dean stepped closer to the couch. “Cas?”  
He didn't react; he just stared at the screen of the TV. It seemed like he did because he was too deep in thoughts or really into the movie, but Dean knew better. When he was about to cry... He always managed to hold back his tears when he concentrated on one point in the room. He knew Cas was doing the same right now. Out of impulse he went around the couch, sat down next to him and pulled him into an embrace. Cas clung onto him, no sound leaving his mouth. He was strong. Dean would never manage to repress tears if he was being held by someone. It would make the tears just flow. But in general, he realized, Cas was stronger than him. He gave up everything he had – for Dean. He stayed absolutely cool today, while Dean, well, didn't. He was a total mess.  
Dean would never admit it – Cas was suffering – but he kind of liked it. At least now he had an excuse to hold him and feel his heart pounding in his chest and his breath in his neck and his warm fingers against his back.  
He loved him.  
He never felt anything even close to this. He would give all his luck away just to give it to him.  
  
“Yeah, I- actually? No, Dean. You must probably think I am weak now. It’s just... you said it was a simple case. If I can't even cope with a simple case, what makes this out of me? I-“ he swallowed, “Being in this other dimension… It brought back old memories. Memories of when I fell. I lived it all again.”

“I'm so sorry, Cas.” Dean said, now both hands on Cas' shoulder. “But listen to me, okay? Cas, I don’t think you’re weak. You're not. You’re everything but weak, understand me?”

Cas continued staring at Dean, nodding faintly.

“It's just... It seems like you're never scared of anything, Dean. You go into the house, kill the ghost as if it was nothing and go on to the next one while I'm struggling with little things.”  
“Cas, you shouldn’t think I’m not scared of things. I hate planes for example. And I don’t like splatter movies. And no matter how afraid you were in that other dimension, or whatever the hell that was, you can be sure that I was just as scared. Of losing you, Castiel.” his voice became quieter and quieter until he whispered, “I was so helpless without you.” and their heads got heavy and magnetic, “I felt so lost” until their lips met. Dean never knew how much he craved this moment. He had no idea. Cas lips were so incredibly soft and warm and they fit perfectly together. Dean couldn't breathe anymore, but he didn't need air, now that he had Cas. He would never need to breathe again. He hoped he wouldn't.

After a while they broke apart. Cas' cheeks had turned the color of ripe tomatoes. He didn't say anything, neither of them did. They just leaned into the kiss again.

  
  


 

 

 

 


End file.
